When I first read that Saletan post I found it pretty convincing. And when I did much more follow-up reading, reading lots of books and journal articles from all sides, it seemed like the preponderance of the evidence is on the side of there being significant ethnic based variation. For example - https://liberalbiorealism.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/the-likel... and his other posts, or https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-i...

You seem like a smart and open minded person. Why did you find Saletan's posts idiotic? I'm genuinely interested in your opinion. Don't answer in this thread though, email me at the address in my profile. You're writing under your real name, and in the possibility that I convince you, I don't want you to get purged.

If it helps, you can think of my opposition to the notion that blacks are somehow intellectually inferior to whites as religious, and you might just as productively spend your time trying to convert me to Zoroastrianism.

Is there any possible evidence, any possible information, that could convince you that genes for IQ were not equally distributed among the races?

For my sake, there would be plenty of possible information that would convince me of the idea of neurological uniformity across ethnic groups, for example: studies of cross-racial adoption that showed the gap being erased, the existence of at least one black nation or city turning into Taiwan or Singapore, a closing of the gap in IQ tests, etc, etc.

If I can be convinced by evidence, but you cannot be convinced by evidence, then it is you who has a religious belief, and not me.

The "gap" between the races on matters such as income, education achievement, or the demographics of Google engineers is a source of constant handwringing.

There are two explanations that are publicly admissible:

1) You can slander and libel white people and blame racism 2) You can slander and libel black people and say it's because of "black culture", because black parents don't tell their kids to do well in school

If you take a third position, the position that thousands of years of evolving in different environments and civilization complexity levels meant that there is a different statistical distribution in different traits, which means there is a different

This third position blames no one, yet the holders of this position are called bigots and are banned from conferences if they even mention this view under a pseudonym in an unrelated context. I confronted tptacek, because he is a person that I have up until now respected, yet he called Saletan an idiot for holding this third position. So I was interested in why tptacek called Saletan an idiot, and I was also interested in the more general problem of how to convince reasonable people to stop slandering black people or slandering white people on the issue of the gap between the races.

I also didn't call Saletan an idiot, obviously.

"He apologized for the series of columns he wrote, and acknowledged that he sourced them poorly"

Are you referring to this article? http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_natur... I read this as him downplaying the certainty of the genetic hypothesis, in order to get the heat off his back. It is pretty obvious he is scared at getting purged: "I don't want this role...You'll have to judge the evidence for yourself." It is not obvious that he changed his mind. And he apologizes for not disclosing Rushton's associations, not for citing Ruston. He doesn't make any claims that Rushton's studies were bad science that should not be cited. Again, sounds like non-apology apology to get the heat off his back. But I can't peer into Saletan's soul so I don't know.

I don't actually think Saletan's article is a great article. I'm lukewarm on how accurate Rushton's stuff is; I think other evidence for the hypothesis that Saletan leaves out is actually more compelling. But I don't think the article is idiotic either.

He just stated that his belief is religious...

(Well, he didn't state that exactly, but he did state that you may as well treat it as such.)

So, two responses to your weird comment.

First: it's false that Chicago gangs are "racist". They aren't hunting down white people. They're hunting down rival gangs. They do that because they are, for the most part, teenagers locked in a vicious cycle of poverty and a total lack of opportunity.

Second: it's extremely sad if from these circumstances you've managed, like Yarvin seems to have, to draw a conclusion about the inferiority of African Americans.

I don't know you, but I feel like I've seen your name around HN for awhile now, and I hadn't had any reason to attach "racially prejudiced" to what little metadata I store about you. I'm hoping instead that I've just misread you. But "racist gangs" is a term you chose to use, which is disquieting.

There is sure as shit some racism tied up in gang violence, but it isn't the kind of racism Yarvin wants to talk about. He'd apparently rather talk at excruciating length about the racism of gang members.

I also think maybe you and I just shouldn't discuss this issue.

Many of the readers may in fact be white nationalists looking to Moldbug for justification for their ideals, and I'd speculate the post is written how it is because it's just not helpful to tell them their concerns are flat-out invalid.

I am not here to defend this position, I am simply here to say I find it to be something other than indefensible.

On the contrary, it's impossible to reach that conclusion if you read even cursorily. For example, neoreactionaries generally accept the results of mainstream academic studies concluding that Chinese are on average more intelligent than Europeans, and that European Jews are on average more intelligent than European Gentiles. These are not views traditionally associated with "white supremacy," to say the least.

P.S. +1 for the reference to one of my favorite sly Simpson's jokes.